Washington (United States) (AFP) – The New York Stock Exchange is moving higher on Thursday, driven by a clear drop in American borrowing costs and a rekindled debate on the future of the monetary policy of the American central bank (Fed).
Published on: 09/03/2026 - 3:35 p.m. Modified on: 09/03/2026 - 4:14 p.m.
Around 2:05 p.m. GMT, the Dow Jones gained 0.56%, the Nasdaq index gained 0.67% and the broader S&P 500 index advanced 0.42%.
While the start of the week was marked by further strong tensions on the bond market, with the resumption of hostilities in the Middle East worrying investors, on Thursday we observed a certain easing of rates which benefited stocks.
The ten-year yield on American government bonds was around 4.75%, compared to 4.78% at the close the day before.
The 30-year maturity traded at 5.24% compared to 5.26% on Wednesday.
"We see how nervous the markets are (...) billions of dollars are being moved in a climate of great nervousness: one day, no one wants to hold bonds, and now everyone is saying 'let's reverse this position'", underlines Steve Sosnick, analyst at Interactive Brokers, to AFP.
The movement was fueled by comments from a Fed official, Governor Christopher Waller.
“If we continue to make progress towards our 2% (inflation) target, then I will be inclined to support keeping key rates at their current level. But if inflation picks up again, I will consider raising rates,” he said at an event organized by Reuters.
“I basically interpreted them as suggesting a data-dependent position,” notes Steve Sosnick.
"The opinion that seems to prevail on the markets is that according to which recent data have shown some signs of disinflation and that, if this trend continues, it would be inclined to keep the key rate unchanged" during the institution's meeting in September, notes Patrick O'Hare, analyst at Briefing.com.
Investors, who mostly expected a turn of the screw from September, are now much more divided, according to the CME FedWatch monitoring tool.
Official US employment data for August will be released on Friday while data on price increases will be shared next week.
New weekly unemployment claims in the United States came in close to expectations on Thursday.
Wall Street prefers an accommodative monetary environment, more conducive to corporate profits.
On the business side, the operator of remote computing services (cloud) Snowflake soared 22.03% to $373.21 after a second quarter well above expectations thanks in particular to the good performance of its programming solutions assisted by artificial intelligence (AI).
The company also revised upwards its forecasts for the full year and brought in its wake other software specialists, like Datadog (+1.83%), ServiceNow (+6.36%) or Salesforce (+3.91%).
The computer chip designer Broadcom fell 6.20% to $344.46, after publishing outlooks for the current quarter which came out - narrowly - below expectations. However, its turnover jumped 86% in the previous quarter (over one year) and its net profit was tripled.
The American giant Campbell's, famous for its canned soups, fell 8.85% to $21.67 after results considered disappointing.
© 2026 AFP
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